ATTARDO: History and fishing meld into Conneaut Lake

Back before you and I were born – at least me anyway – a great glacier covered northwestern Pennsylvania and when the glacier retreated in the slow, scouring way that only great glaciers retreat, it formed Conneaut Lake.

Today Conneaut (roughly pronounced con-EE-aught) is the state’s largest natural lake, though it has been somewhat humanly enhanced. Both the fragmented glacier and Industrial-age manhandling fashioned these deep 925 acres with the late Wisconsian-epoch glacier doing most of the work about 13,000 to 20,000 years ago.

Besides the glacier, Conneaut’s chief claim to fame -- other than its great fishing -- is its boating history, particularly classic wooden power boats, double-decked steam cruisers and smaller passenger ferries.

Perhaps the most historical hull of all belongs to a 1920’s vintage speedboat that sank on Conneaut around the time the Great Gatsby was dating Daisy, or thereabouts. The wooden speedboat, which oddly had a rudder in its bow instead of the stern, was powered by a V-8 450 horsepower airplane motor. A meager wave flipped the boat and it sank like a dinosaur in a tar pit, but its two operators were unhurt.

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In 1985 divers raised the boat, named “Liberty the Second,” finding the inboard engine intact and rust free, and according to published reports, with “air compression in some spark plugs.” Buried in mud and cold water, the 20-foot flat-bottomed mahogany hull was also preserved.

The restored boat is now housed in the Conneaut Lake Historical Society museum and shown outdoors every year as part of the Antique Wooden Classic Boat Show.

If you enjoy vintage boating and historical photographs, I suggest visiting the Allegheny Chapter ACBS website at: centuryclassicpowerboat.com/allegheny, for more information and photos.

I am not a boating expert so we’ll leave the boat lore at that. However as you are blissfully well aware, I am an unrivaled fishing expert so we’ll continue along that line.

As an expert I can pontificate on the great angling at Conneaut, and though I’ve had only a condensed experience on this jewel, I’ve seen enough to know that good is good.

I’ve been on Conneaut just three times that I can remember, but always I enjoyed stellar fishing, though conditions were often far from perfect.

Most of my angling on Conneaut has been with local angler, Bryan Stuyvesant, a veteran of Desert Storm. Several years ago we motored out to catch black bass, catching some fine largemouth and even more beautiful bluegills. Recently we went out for bluegill, catching none, but we did manage superlative crappie and yellow perch.

With these evaluations I’d say that Conneaut in western Crawford County produces excellent numbers and quality of fish.

The first thing that’s so perfect about the lake is the clarity and color of its deep waters, and in consequence the color of its fish. Some Pennsylvania waters have brightly colored warmwater fish, but Conneaut fins are so pretty they deserve to be on cover of People or Us magazines, if those mags featured fish. On a recent trip the crappie and perch were shining stars, and just not in color but in size too, and in numbers.

Conneaut has depths over 70 feet and general depths of 20 and 30 feet. But something else that’s really good about Conneaut is the proliferation of its natural lake structures. As Stuyvesant has shown me on his boat’s sonar, there are numerous wide humps that rise from the darkest depths to just four to six feet below the surface. Stuyvesant knows of at least seven of these humps that dominate portions of the lake.

In conjunction with the tall, clean weeds that surround them, the humps are fish magnets. When we find the humps, and figure out what the fish will eat, we catch bunches.

The downside of Conneaut is the number of houses and development along the shores and the attitude of some property owners on this public lake -- there is one PFBC ramp and parking area at the northern end. Boating and skiing are a big attraction and many floating enthusiasts hold the belief that weeds are bad for their form of recreation.

In man’s time Conneaut has been subjected to all kinds of unnatural weed abatement, with little thought of how this affects the lake’s fish life. A few years ago, the leader of the property owners’ association was quoted as saying that as far as he was concerned, Conneaut’s fishermen could go elsewhere. He didn’t give a thought to the fish that have more right to the ancient water than his association or its fishermen. But that’s the attitude around Conneaut. Fortunately the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission stepped in and these days weed abatement procedures are not as abhorrent.

The other down thing about Conneaut is that once the summer season begins you really don’t want to fish these waters in the middle of the day. The number of boaters is just not conducive to good fishing, but anglers need to share as well.

In geography Conneaut is about three miles long and one-mile wide at its widest. The fishing-holding humps are spread around the lake and require sonar to find. Without one, or a friend showing the way, you’re mostly fishing blind. However, long portions of three shorelines are also coated with docks. When there’s spawning of bass and bluegill the docks are good to work, but realize that the visible structures are heavily pressured.

Other than bass and bluegill, the species you’ll find on Conneaut include crappie, walleye, yellow perch and northern pike. Stuyvesant, who had previously never caught a yellow perch anywhere, is amazed at the sudden appearance of trophy-sized perch on Conneaut this spring. At one point his sonar screen was plastered with fish-arches. We caught some of these, confirming they were yellow perch.

Crappie fishing on Conneaut is regularly outstanding with large black crappie apparently in a high cycle, according to our catch rate and size. Northern pike are abundant and Stuyvesant had one latch onto a crappie as he reeled it in.

Overall, I think Conneaut is one of the best fishing lakes in western Pennsylvania, and a personal favorite.

But look, as to declaring myself a fishing expert, you know that was just a joke. I am, as we all know, much better than an expert.

About the Author

Vic Attardo has been writing about the outdoors since age 6 when he caught his first magnetic fish in a bath tub and captured the tale with crayon.
Since then he has published literally hundreds of outdoors stories in national and state magazines.
He is currently a contributing editor to the Pennsylvania Angler and Boater, the official Pa. Fish and Boat Commission magazine; fish and tackle editor for Fur-Fish-Game and his work appears in every issue of the Pennsylvania Outdoor News. He is also featured in the Cabela's Outdoor Journal, the F&W Ice Annual, New York Outdoor News and many others. Reach the author at vicattardo@gmail.com
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